


Vacancy

by beautlilies



Category: Twilight Series - All Media Types, Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: F/M, Shitty Motels, because it is me, do we think about logistics in this fic, eh, for jaliceweek, fresh out of high school au, graduate and then get hitched and cross country road trip baby, it is my brand now, it is the long awaited road trip, there is some nsfw things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-06
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-18 04:42:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,431
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29237772
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beautlilies/pseuds/beautlilies
Summary: The ninth apartment has one closet. Alice is just small enough to slip behind the door, just barely tall enough to hit her head on the rack that he thinks is only still on the wall because of an adhesive and that no repairs were actually made prior to the listing being made public.
Relationships: Alice Cullen/Jasper Hale
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13
Collections: Jalice Week - February 2021





	Vacancy

**T** **HE NINTH APARTMENT** has one closet. Alice is just small enough to slip behind the door, just barely tall enough to hit her head on the rack that he thinks is only still on the wall because of an adhesive and that no repairs were  _ actually  _ made prior to the listing being made public. But it did have a sliding glass door, from which he could see the sun dipping below the belly of the horizon. Even though it was October, Jasper still hasn’t adjusted to the time change.

Alice was toying with the closet door. Pulling it open and sliding it close. He watched her do it one more before he put his hand on the curve of her waist and kissed the side of her head. “There’s only one closet,” she says.

Jasper shrugs. “That’s fine. I don’t have anything to put in it.”

“Me neither.” They share a smile. The agent steps in after them, looking unimpressed with their display. “We’ll take it,” Alice tells her. But they are told they cannot rent the apartment with an air of finality. Jasper is surprised it took the agent as long as it did to find something amiss with the two teenagers with Washington state driver’s licenses’ and their indirect answers.

They return to the motel just outside of Philadelphia. Jasper spent the entire drive listening for signs of irritation, indignation, anything. But all Alice did was take his hand in her own and hum along to the radio, her eyes closed and shoulders relaxed against the torn leather of his truck. He asks her over the breaks from Johnny Cash if she’s feeling all right, but he’s not sure if he should believe the lazy smile and the way she looks at him through her lashes. She wants a home. Not another rejection.

He helps her down because it makes her smile, a tiny quirk at the corner of her lips as she takes his hand and slips off the seat. Kisses the crown of her head as she shoves the key in the lock, waits for him to push against the jamb before she uses her weight to force the door open. He had complained about it the first night, but she had tugged the curtains closed and remarked that it was harder for someone to get in and he hasn’t thought about leaving since. Now, she slips off her shoes and into bed, holding out a hand for him to come join her.

“I’m sorry about today,” he says.

Alice shrugs. “You didn’t turn us away.”

“I think I will apply for a second job. Just until we can get settled.”

She makes a face, a crease forming between her eyebrows. Jasper’s thumb comes to smooth it out instantly, and she gives him another tired smile. “I don’t want to think about it anymore.”

He obliges. It’s not the end of it, but he can give her this. And maybe he can give himself this, too.

“What do you want to think about, my darling?”

“I think this cross-country road trip counts as a honeymoon, don’t you?”

“Technically, yes it does.”

“We’re pretty lucky to be on the second week of our honeymoon.”

“We are.”

“I do have an issue with marriage, though.”

Jasper’s heart drops. He pulls away from Alice, just slightly. “Oh?”

“You don’t kiss me as much anymore.”

He breathes a bit easier again. Once, he would have found the strength to be annoyed with her, but he’s learned a long time ago that this is simply _Alice_. It is her humor and simply the way she thinks. Any issue she has is said outright, explosive and irrational until the cycle of tears and yelling completes itself. (They won’t admit that these are the very things they are running from and they have to confront it eventually, but not now. Not when they are eighteen and just married with only the little bit of her trust fund they dipped into to tide them over.)  
“My apologies,” he says, a rasp sounding from the back of his throat. (He’s still afraid that she will see him in the light that he sees himself and she will leave him faster than his parents did.) Alice takes his face in her tiny, delicate hands and pulls him down for a quick kiss, and then another, and another.

Jasper pulls away first. Her eyes are still closed, and her smile is dreamy. It could be the weight of his insecurities, or the crippling sensation of failure, but his chest is heavy. (He swore to provide for her, to keep her happy and bursting at the seams with happiness, but there’s hardly enough money to pay for gas, food, and the motel and she’s slowly losing her zest for life and the endless possibilities of the future.) Right now, he just wants to feel her. Be close to her.

He can feel her fingers toy with the collar of his shirt. The warmth of her palms as she slips her hands underneath the soft cotton and runs her hands along his shoulders, his spine, his neck. The restraint he shows is waning, his imagination considering what it would feel like to slip between her legs, to hover over her as she wraps her legs around his waist and breathes his name around desperate kisses. She knows this, he can see it in her smile as she bites her lip and brings his hand to rest just below her navel. A slow, insistent inch lower and lower. (She’s toying with him, a provocative game of poke the bear to get what she wants. He should be ashamed at how easy it is for him to get to this point, but he can’t think with her spreading her legs and shoving his hand beneath those workout pants and cotton underwear.)  
She is warm and pliable beneath the tips of his fingers. Lets him toy with her as he pleases, eager to help him yank off her clothes. He wants to take his time with her, but she’s in an unexplainable rush that sparks something primal in him. She doesn’t wear a bra, throws on a sweater when it’s chilly because he has no problem starting a fight with any unfortunate soul that catches sight of her nipples straining through the fabric of her t-shirt. (He’s impulsive and still in the throws of teenage angst. He thinks he’s allowed to be a bit reckless in those instances. And he likes how it makes him feel, likes to know that at the end of the day he’s the one that gets to know what color her nipples are and what she likes best. He won’t tell her that, but he suspects she already knows.) 

It’s not different today. Palms the gentle swells of her breast as he kisses the hollow of her throat. Down the length of her torso as she murmurs something under her breath. She has a smattering of freckles all over her stomach, over her hips. A tattoo right on the side of her hip of a snake that she got as a birthday present to herself. She’s an art exhibit and every time he visits he discovers something new. Something else to fall in love with.

He notices for the first time that she’s the slightest bit ticklish just under her knees. A slight jerk, a sharp breath. (He’ll try and figure out why he has never noticed this reaction before and will ultimately decide that he was just lost in the way his name would sound from her lips and her nails against his scalp.) He’s hardly touching her, not in the way she wants him too. She grows frustrated with how his hands just  _ roam _ and tease ever so slightly.

She pushes herself to her elbows. He is overdressed in every manner, jeans and a crooked smile. It’s her window to move things along, and she doesn’t hesitate to tug on the collar of his shirt and use her feet to nudge his jeans down. There will be time for the chase another day. Maybe when life decides to give them a moment to breathe. But for now, she needs the reassurance of his love in the rough snap of his hips, the way his fingers dig into her skin when she brings herself down on him.

And when he is stripped of every barrier, she pulls him in for a kiss. Her fingers tangle themselves in sloppy golden hair, tugging hard. They don’t fit together perfectly in physical capacity, he is so tall and she is so short. She is his opposite and his equal, a different intensity in how they fit, how they work. Where he is rough she is gentle and where she is broken and cracked he is smooth and whole. It is the juxtaposition that brought them together, and she hopes it is what will keep them together decades from now.

Jasper pushes her back down. She thought she would fight it, would fight to be the one to bring him to the brink, to take control. But she is still a bit insecure in how she moves. Knows that he is still trying to figure out what feels the best. How they fit, how they move, what they both need. They are still new at this intimate dance, but this is what makes him feel the most comfortable. (And herself if she’s being honest, but she can’t be honest with herself until she confronts every piece of what made her run away and get married on nothing more than a whim just off the heels of an explosive argument.)

(And maybe she also gets off on how much smaller she is. She won’t tell him that. She’s not ready for the teasing that will ensue, but her stomach flutters at the possibilities of what could come.)  
They are so, so clumsy. They have been intimate so many times, but the dance is still accompanied by the grip of her heart and an anxious bout of butterflies. He is, too. He’s told her once that she leaves him drowning in the way his senses seem to heighten. That she steals his charisma. His confidence. Alice will never forget how bright he burned when she confessed he does the same to her. But it brings her comfort that he is still trying to figure out what feels best for her, pressure and angles because she’s no better. They are a mess of giggles and _oops_ and _are you all right_ ’s while he tries so hard to get her as wet and as warm as possible. She is so, so small. And he is so, so big.   
But they manage to make it work. He always cradles her head close when they are like this. She won’t ever say aloud how much she loves when he takes her face in his hands, when he rests his forehead on her own. Even when he tucks his head just beneath her jaw, whispering and murmuring and kissing her just how she likes. It’s intimate and it reminds her just how much he loves her, just how much he has thrown away to follow nothing but a whim and an idea.

It takes them a minute, maybe three to find a rhythm. Life is so serious so often and she thinks that they’re allowed a few minutes to goof off and just be. Even when he tickles the underside of her knee, when his body flexes and contracts beneath her nails. When they accidentally bump teeth and bite too hard on lips. Her insides burn and she cannot understand where he starts and she ends. She is lost to the way his lips feel on her neck, on her lips. She thinks she is saying his name, or something that can communicate how good she feels. But it is all gone the second his hands move to between her thighs, small circles, slow and gentle and she’s gone.

(He’s smiling like he’s unlocked the secret to the Universe. She absolutely hates that he has. But she will find a way to find her own secret. Her own way to make him lose all sense.)

They are still new to this, and he is not far behind her. A sputtering of his hips, his fingers digging into her shoulders, her sides. She thinks he’s at his most beautiful when his features are slackened and the world is coming back to life, his senses slowly trickling in. He always tries his hardest not to collapse on top of her, even when she reminds him that she likes to feel the weight of him against her no matter what.

There is so much to talk about. Finances to discuss. An argument or two they need to tiptoe around. (She wants to dip into her trust fund more, has no problem with it. She’d prefer it to having him work so many odd jobs and barely spending time with him. But he is prideful and he wants to provide without taking the easy way out.) They need to clean up and start their search and reevaluate their apartment specifications.

But for now, Alice will tuck herself into his side and reciprocate his lazy kisses. 

They deserve it, after all.

* * *

Alice chooses to drive the stretch from Philadelphia to Maryland. He knows that he will have to take over for her eventually, but he is not too concerned about it when she starts to chastise him for his decision to buy a car that was not automatic. He likes to tease her with it, likes to remind her that he’s spent so much time teaching her that there is no reason for her to be annoyed with it. She drives it effortlessly, but she reminds him over and over again that it is so much for her brain to process at one time.

(Which is hilarious to him because Alice is not known for devoting her attention to a singular task. He won’t tell her that just yet, maybe when they inevitably get tired of the long stretches of interstates and traffic patterns and find another shitty motel to spend the night in he’ll bring it up.)

For now, Jasper watches as she yells about the proper merging techniques with each on-ramp they drive past. He’s in charge of the radio even though they have wildly different music tastes.

They’ll let the good times roll and the bad ones, too.


End file.
